10/20/30/70+

"The Legacy of the LGBTQ Community" was chosen as the official theme for the Gay Pride events 2018 in recognition of the community's founders and longstanding members in Israel. Featuring works by artists from the LGBTQ community, the exhibition delves into a variety of themes - identity, gender, age, compassion, and love - through the prism of social, cultural, and artistic discourses.

The works, mainly photographs, were created by artists of different generations, some trailblazers in Israeli art and others making their debut here. The State of Israel is seventy years young, as is Israeli art. Younger still is LGBTQ art. Nevertheless, the works address universal themes, striving to touch each and every one of us and to relate to every human being.

These human archetypes are manifested through photographs depicting the search for human warmth and intimacy, as discernible in works by Adi Nes, Tamir Lahav-Radlmesser, Liat Elbling, Gili Levinson, and Elad Zakai. They are also conveyed through the compassionate and empowering gaze in photographic portraits by Yariv Fein, Rinat Schnadower, Dave Yaacov, Sichi Gilad, and Hanna Sahar. Some of the featured portraits engage in iconography and body image, as in the paintings by Omri Koresh, Amir Kissner, and Michael Liani, the drawings of Ori Shami, and embroidery work of Eran Inbar. Lastly, the exhibition's underlying concept is reflected in photographs of objects by Daphna Ichilov, Yael Meiry, and Ivri Lider, perpetuating moments of gender-sensitive melancholy and quandary.

The show, the first of its kind presented in an Israeli museum, marks the beginning of a process that strives to give voice and visibility to the Queer community in all its variety, acknowledging that the story of Israeli art cannot be complete without the story of Queer art.

The exhibition is the initiative of ARTIQ - Israeli Queer Art, a project that seeks to encourage artmaking, preservation, and representation of Queer culture and art in Israel, to enable artists to examine the affinities between art and social equality in ways that stimulate dialogue and reflection, and to disseminate the authentic voice of the Queer community, proud and clear.